HIGH-TECH
KITCHEN By Greg Morago
You’re driving home from work intent on getting dinner on the table within the next half hour. You use a Smartphone app to tell your oven to preheat. You decide not to stop at the grocery store even though your recipe calls for two eggs (but you know you have them because your refrigerator alerted you about your egg inventory). At your front door is the Amazon box full of your favorite rinsing tablets that were automatically ordered days ago by your dishwasher that knew you were low. Once in the kitchen you sit your phone down on the countertop whose surface automatically charges your phone. You let your oven guide you through your dinner plan and while those brussels sprouts are roasting you prepare the rest of the meal on the flat-surface induction cooktop that never gets hot to the touch. Voila, dinner is served. There’s nothing Jetsonian about this scenario where wellengineered kitchen appliances help home cooks in meal planning, cooking and cleaning. That utopian outline for a kitchen that is intuitive and more than a couple steps ahead of you is not something far off in the future. It’s here, it’s now. Thanks to a host of high-end appliance manufacturers, the high-tech kitchen is changing the way we look at the room that is traditionally considered the heart of the home. Gone are the days when a kitchen with functional design and cookie-cutter appliances from big box stores was simply a place to prepare family meals. Today’s kitchens are family hubs where office and homework are done around big islands, where busy parents plan and organize the household, and where (thanks to food television) culinary boundaries are being pushed.
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And as such, it must behave like a modern hub – with voice assistance, internet connectivity and all the latest technological advances. “Tech has been around for a long time. Smart technology has been around for a while now. But now is the first time that it’s mainstream and more embedded in our lifestyle,” said Ryan Herd, a technology insider for the National Kitchen & Bath Association. And nowhere in the modern home is tech more apparent – and useful – than in the family kitchen. Today’s cutting-edge kitchens are governed by smart refrigerators (LG, Samsung and GE make fridges that can alert you when the door is left open or if you’re low on milk), smart ovens (you can preheat, adjust cooking temperatures, time food and thurn the oven off from anywhere using your phone or voice activtion, as well as employ different cooking and baking techniques from Bosh, LG and Whirlpool. “The most branded room in the home is the kitchen,” said Suly C. Weissman, architectural and design manager for Texas for BSH Home Appliances Corp., representing high-end brands Gaggenau, Bosch and Thermador. “Kitchen appliances are now status symbols.” And, naturally, you’ll pay for it. Gaggenau’s state-of-the-art, commercial-grade ovens can easily cost as much as a small car; LG Signature’s WiFi enabled counter-depth refrigerator is about $6,500; a top-of-the-line Thermador wall oven can cost $3,000 to $5,000; a Bosch dishwasher fetches a cool $1,000.
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But these are prices that new homebuyers and homeowners who
Mike Wolf, creator of the show’s Smart Kitchen Summit, said
are investing in upgrading their kitchens are willing to pay. The
the kitchen is in “that awkward phase” where different software
U.S. residential kitchen and bath market spiked to $158.11 billion,
ecosystems exist with appliances using only their own app.
according to NKBA’s most recent figures, representing one-quarter
Speaking at the summit, Joshua Sigel, COO of Innit, an eating
of the entire U.S. residential construction market.
technology company, said only five percent of U.S. kitchens have the same brand of appliances,
“Five to 10 years ago, people would
creating a “bifurcated experience.”
go with the cheapest cabinets
His company wants to bridge those
and appliances from big box
technologies where appliances,
stores,” Weissman said. “Today, the investment is in kitchens and bathrooms. The residential market is becoming more particular about the virtues of the high-tech kitchen.” While all the new appliance technology is a good thing, there are speed bumps in the road to a truly integrated high-tech kitchen.
“KITCHEN appliances are now status symbols.”
grocery retailers, e-commerce, food manufacturers and health and wellness considerations are linked in a single platform so consumers won’t have to use multiple applications to get through a single meal. For the truly high-end kitchen, that experience exists. Home Connect is an app that integrates refrigerators, ovens and cooktops,
At last year’s International Home
dishwashers, washing machines and
+ Housewares Show in Chicago,
dryers for the brands Bosch,
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Gaggenau, Thermador and Siemens. “This brave new world of
“When you look at the home residential market, what sells homes?
home technology should be celebrated, not feared,” Weissman said.
Kitchens and bathroom,” he said. “What are the number one and two things to remodel? Kitchens
“If it’s easier, wouldn’t you cook
and bathrooms.”
more at home?” she said, adding that foodie-minded consumers want to create restaurant-quality experiences at home. “If you want it, you can have it. Anything you’re capable of imagining, we can do it.” Herd agrees that foodies have helped spark the game-changing advances in the modern kitchen. So, have we reached a zenith where
“...what sells homes? KITCHENS and bathrooms.”
Herd said to expect more advancements in the kitchen, but the bathroom is truly where the next new high-tech wizardry will take place in the home. “The bathroom is absolutely and positively the next frontier,” he said. “It’s coming and it’s going to knock your socks off.”
the high-tech kitchen is concerned? “Not really,” Herd said.
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